Difficult to do tour
Although she has been to Hoi An many times, this year, Ms. Nguyen An Thi, a tourist from Hanoi, had the opportunity to attend the Kim Bong Village Festival. Surprised by the festival atmosphere and the cultural values of the craft village, Ms. An Thi shared: "I did not think the festival would be so fun and unique, especially experiencing the card game and wood carving."
Kim Bong Village Festival takes place on February 8-9 (January 11-12). At the event, domestic and international tourists have the opportunity to join in festival activities such as boating on the river, watching the rural market, participating in folk games, craft demonstrations, cuisine, etc.
It is estimated that Quang Nam has more than 10 major spring festivals, in Hoi An City alone, some festivals have become annual cultural activities such as Cau Bong Festival, Kim Bong Craft Village Festival, Lantern Festival...
However, festival information is not systematically promoted, especially in the media or not included in the tour itinerary by travel companies. Therefore, attracting visitors to the festival is mostly random, visitors come on their own during their trip and are not included in the pre-arranged program.
According to Mr. Le Hoang Ha - Director of Duy Nhat Hoi An Tourism Service Company Limited, with indigenous cultural values, Quang Nam spring festivals can all become tourism products.
In fact, since the Lunar New Year, Mr. Ha’s company has also organized tours to several festivals around Hoi An, such as Cau Bong Festival and Kim Bong Village Festival, to enhance the experience for visitors. However, turning the festival into a stable annual tourism product is another story.
“The first thing is that the festival must convey a cultural and spiritual message, especially there must be connections, creating a long-term series of consecutive events. However, most of the festivals in Quang Nam today take place individually, for a short time, on a small scale and have a local character. Not to mention, the “festival” part is not special or unique, so it is very difficult to include it in the tour to sell to customers as a festival tourism product,” Mr. Ha analyzed.
Need to scale up
In some localities, spring travel during the festival season is always an event that attracts the attention of travel agencies and tourists. In Quang Nam, many festivals can still develop in association with tourism because they are located in the space of the ancient urban heritage area of Hoi An and the My Son temple complex, convenient for visitors. But in reality, most localities have not achieved this goal.
According to Mr. Nguyen Trong Tuan - Director of Hoi An DMC Tourism Company, in order for Quang Nam festivals to become spring travel destinations, it is necessary to elevate the event to a tourism product. In particular, the "festival" part should have a variety of suitable entertainment activities, especially for international visitors.
“Most of my customers are Westerners, they don’t understand anything about the rituals, not to mention not all festivals are special… But if there are fun and festive activities, they can participate. However, that is just a small experience, but the company has never organized a separate spring tour to introduce and sell to customers,” Mr. Tuan shared.
He added that most travel agencies in Quang Nam operate in a tour-linking style, organizing tours for visitors to visit one destination in a short period of time, so they do not always coincide with the festival time.
Mr. Van Ba Son - Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said that exploiting festival values has always been identified by the Quang Nam tourism industry as necessary to diversify destinations, create novelty, and preserve indigenous culture.
However, for the festival to truly become a highlight to attract tourists, the first requirement is to organize it systematically and annually, including mobilizing the participation of economic sectors; developing cultural stories associated with the religious life of the people through the festival, creating spiritual beliefs for visitors.
“When the festival brand is enhanced, more visitors will help the festival activities develop and expand, the community and even tourism businesses will participate, thereby forming tourism products, bringing attractiveness to spring visitors” - Mr. Son analyzed.
Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/cho-doi-tu-du-lich-le-hoi-3150391.html
![[Photo] Visiting Cu Chi Tunnels - a heroic underground feat](https://vstatic.vietnam.vn/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/4/8/06cb489403514b878768dd7262daba0b)
Comment (0)